Miami Beach Bowl Primer
12/4/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - The Central Michigan football team accepted an invitation on Sunday to play in the Miami Beach Bowl on Monday, Dec. 19, against Tulsa.
"Extremely excited," CMU senior quarterback Cooper Rush said shortly after Director of Athletics Dave Heeke informed the Chippewas of their destination. "We've got a good group of guys and coaches and to get a chance to play another game in a fun bowl game like the Beach Bowl. We're excited."
The game, which will be played at Marlins Park, carries a 2:30 p.m. kickoff. It is CMU's third consecutive trip to a bowl game and its eighth in the last 11 years.
• Tickets will go on sale at 8 a.m. Tuesday at Ticket Central inside the Student Events Center. More information regarding tickets will be released on Monday. Check back at cmuchippewas.com for all the details.
• Tulsa is 9-3 and finished 6-2 (second) in the American Athletic Conference West Division.
• The Golden Hurricane is an offensive juggernaut, producing 522.5 yards per game, which ranks sixth in Football Bowl Subdivision. Quarterback Dane Evans has thrown for 3,044 yards and 27 touchdowns, and it features the top two rushers in the American, James Flanders (1,529 yards) and D'Angelo Brewer (1,330).
• CMU coach John Bonamego is returning to Miami, which was one of his stops when he was an NFL assistant. Bonamego was the special teams coordinator for the Miami Dolphins in 2008-10.
"It's a great destination," Bonamego said. "Enjoyed my two years there. Lot of good people. Lot of great friends. Tremendous amount of culture down there; good food and sunshine. It's got to be in the top five in terms of destinations for a bowl game."
• The Chippewas, like every bowl-bound team, have more time to prepare for the game than they would for a typical regular-season game.
But they won't have as long to prepare as they have had for their past two bowl-game appearances. The Miami Beach Bowl is scheduled for Dec. 19. Two years ago, CMU played in the Bahamas Bowl on Dec. 24; last year, the Chippewas played in the Quick Lane Bowl on Dec. 28.
"You get to spend Christmas at home," CMU quarterback Cooper Rush said. "Haven't done that in a few years. It's just fun to be able to go play, get another opportunity."
• Rush has quarterbacked the Chippewas in each of the past two bowl appearances, both of them losses.
"We want to win, get a bowl ring, hold a trophy - something we haven't been able to do," he said. "It's definitely on our mind."
• Last year's Quick Lane Bowl was Bonamego's first bowl game as a head coach. He said the biggest lesson for him coming out of that experience was keeping a balance between football and the peripheral activities, of which there are plenty at any given bowl.
"This is a great reward for our team, but it's a business trip," he said. "We have to keep that in mind. It's OK to have some fun, but we have to make sure that our work and the football stuff comes first and that can be challenging."
The entire Chippewa roster will travel to the game. Normally, the travel roster comprises about 60 players.
"When you're at a bowl you've got 30, 35, 40 players who don't travel during the regular season that now all of a sudden are traveling and you've got to educate them on what the standard is, what's expected because it's their first time doing it," Bonamego said. "It can be tempting for guys to go outside the lines so we as coaches have to remind them that there are boundaries and that they can't cross those boundaries and if they do there's going to be ramifications."
• It will be the final game for a number of Chippewa seniors, including Rush and several others who have been regular starters/contributors almost since their arrival on campus.
"There's a special feeling you have for seniors because you know it's their last time to do something and they've invested a tremendous amount of effort, time and energy into not just this program but throughout their playing careers," Bonamego said. "For many of them this is going to be the last time they have the opportunity to suit up and play."
• Bonamego was asked about a variety of topics during Sunday's press conference, including his ballot in the Amway Coaches Top 25 poll.
He said he voted rival Western Michigan 25th. The Broncos are 12-0 and ranked 14th and headed to the Cotton Bowl as the highest-ranked team from a Group of Five conference.
"They probably deserve to be higher," Bonamego said. "It's hard enough to vote for them. I couldn't bring myself to vote them any higher. I knew that my single vote wasn't going to make that much difference, but at least I did include them."
Bonamego, who played at CMU in the mid-80s, has never masked his distaste for Western Michigan. But he was on Sunday, and has been in the recent past, respectful and candid in his assessment of the Broncos' success in 2016.
"I think they've done an outstanding job," he said. "They've earned it. It would be tougher if you felt like someone wasn't deserving. I think it's great for our conference. I think it raises the bar for everybody and I think that that's a good thing, I really do.
"They've shown everybody what's possible, what can be accomplished. My stance is if they can do it, then why not us? I'm sure every other MAC school feels the same way and they should. We're a great conference. We have great coaches, we have great talent in this league, I think it's very underrated in a lot of ways and I think it would have been a very big injustice if Western as an undefeated team didn't make it into one of those bowls."
